Honouring mothers is a tradition around the world which goes back a long way

MOTHER’S DAY, which this year falls on this Sunday has now become an important day in the year in many countries for people honour their mums.

The dates and types of celebrations vary in different parts of the world but Mother’s Day traditionally involves presenting mothers with flowers, cards and other gifts, taking them for lunch or dinner and generally making a fuss of them for the day.

The origins of the celebration of mothers and motherhood goes back a long way.

Celebrations of motherhood can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who held festivals in honour of the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele.

But in more recent times the basis for mothers being honoured on a particular day lie in Mothering Sunday.

Once a major tradition in the United Kingdom and parts of Europe, this religious service fell on the fourth Sunday in Lent and was originally seen as a time when the faithful would return to their “mother church” – the main church in the vicinity of their home – for a special service.

Traditionally, it was a day when children, mainly daughters, who had gone to work as domestic servants were given a day off to visit their mother and family.

Over time the Mothering Sunday tradition shifted into a more secular holiday, and children would present their mothers with flowers and other tokens of appreciation.

This custom eventually faded in popularity before merging with the idea of the American Mother’s Day in the 1930s and 1940s.

The American incarnation of Mother’s Day was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908 and became an official US holiday in 1914. Jarvis would later denounce the holiday’s commercialisation and spent the latter part of her life trying to remove it from the calendar.